Pre-raid Gear by slot

As a preface for this section, it will not include crafted gear in the individual slot lists but in its own special section at the end. I do this because a 715 crafted item would be the clear winner for each slot, and want to focus specifically on what slots it is best for. As such, I'll go over which slots are best in that section.

In each section here I'll be listing the best items by their slot starting with the best obtainable item, down to the worst. Baleful items will have multiple listings per slot as it won't let me link 675 or empowered baleful pieces individually. I'll also specifically be excluding warforged items in this section, which includes Mythic Warforged dungeon pieces.

Baleful & Crafted Item Enchant Listing:

As I'll only be linking one specific "of the X" items through the regular links in the lists below I'll be going with the *best*. However, having a full listing of each type that's relevant to Elemental at the beginning will serve as a good guideline for when you don't get the *best* one they'll still have value even if they aren't necessarily the *best*. The full listing (in order of strength) is as follows:

Of the Deft (Haste/Multistrike)Of the Savage (Crit/Multistrike)Of the Fireflash (Haste/Crit)Of the Strategist (Vers/Multistrike)Of the Merciless (Mastery/Multistrike)----Of the Aurora (Haste/Vers)Of the Quickblade (Crit/Vers)Of the Feverflare (Haste/Mastery)Of the Peerless (Crit/Mastery)Of the Harmonious (Mastery/Versatility)

Above the line is in general fine/acceptable and can be rerolled at your liesure. Below the line will have the items in question beginning to fall behind better itemized pieces of a lower item level, and should be rerolled (or in the case of baleful tokens sold & bought/found again) as soon as you can do so.

I leave out straight stat baleful items on purpose here, as actually excluding your other stats in the pursuit of Multistrike looks really cool and works out fairly poorly in practice as our stats make each other stronger so having a bit of each is always a good thing.

Crafted Gear

When looking to crafted gear, there's a major question you have to ask yourself. Do you want as much dps as you can possibly get with your crafted items right now, or do you want to keep your crafted items as long as possible without having to worry about upgrading them? In general, crafted items are as much about plugging gaps in your gear drops as they are anything else, so keep in mind that I'm suggesting things here assuming you have no gaps in your gear and are upgrading pieces that are the best available in their slots otherwise.

If you're looking for the former, then there are more than a few answers. What I'll cover here is what items are the best over the Pre-raid Best in Slot setup, and which ones last the longest within HFC. We'll begin with looking at the biggest upgrades right away. The biggest upgrades over a pre-raid BiS would be:

Crystalfire Spellstaff - The additional Spell Power provided by a weapon will pretty easily trump any other potential upgrade beyond perhaps the trinket if you're looking for immediate power. However, if you're looking to aim for Mythic Warforged pieces I'd suggest avoiding this as weapons are available in every instance and one warforged weapon drop from a Mythic Dungeon will make this upgrade rather small.

Stein der Elemente - This trinket will be a rather massive upgrade over the empowered baleful token that likely will sit in your 2nd trinket slot, and would also be much stronger than the best of the Mythic Dungeon trinkets even when Warforged. It doesn't hold up well against HFC trinkets, and would be replaced once you have access to the full suite of normal mode trinkets.

Either Wayfaring Tunic or Wayfaring Leggings - If you're only picking one, the legs should be the way to go. If you have a Mythic Warforged dungeon weapon, then grab both!

If instead you're looking for the items that will take you the farthest into HFC without having to worry about replacing them, then a completely different set of items wind up being your best choices:

Whispering Taladite Ring - This ring will likely remain on your finger until Mythic Socrethar falls to your might. The only rings that can overcome this one before him, are the socketed or warforged & socketed version